The AIF Project

Norman Charles WHITELAW

Regimental number3498
Place of birthAdelaide, South Australia
ReligionPresbyterian
OccupationDraper
Address7 Dundas Place, Albert Park, Victoria
Marital statusSingle
Age at embarkation34
Height5' 9"
Weight156 lbs
Next of kinFather, A Whitelaw, 7 Dundas Place, Albert Park, Victoria
Previous military serviceServed in the Cadets, Launceston, for 18 months 20 years previously.
Enlistment date9 July 1915
Rank on enlistmentPrivate
Unit name6th Battalion, 11th Reinforcement
AWM Embarkation Roll number23/23/3
Embarkation detailsUnit embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A71 Nestor on 11 October 1915
Rank from Nominal RollCorporal
Unit from Nominal Roll6th Battalion
FateKilled in Action 4 October 1917
Place of burialNo known grave
Commemoration detailsThe Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial (Panel 7), Belgium

The Menin Gate Memorial (so named because the road led to the town of Menin) was constructed on the site of a gateway in the eastern walls of the old Flemish town of Ypres, Belgium, where hundreds of thousands of allied troops passed on their way to the front, the Ypres salient, the site from April 1915 to the end of the war of some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

The Memorial was conceived as a monument to the 350,000 men of the British Empire who fought in the campaign. Inside the arch, on tablets of Portland stone, are inscribed the names of 56,000 men, including 6,178 Australians, who served in the Ypres campaign and who have no known grave.

The opening of the Menin Gate Memorial on 24 July 1927 so moved the Australian artist Will Longstaff that he painted 'The Menin Gate at Midnight', which portrays a ghostly army of the dead marching past the Menin Gate. The painting now hangs in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, at the entrance of which are two medieval stone lions presented to the Memorial by the City of Ypres in 1936.

Since the 1930s, with the brief interval of the German occupation in the Second World War, the City of Ypres has conducted a ceremony at the Memorial at dusk each evening to commemorate those who died in the Ypres campaign.

Panel number, Roll of Honour,
  Australian War Memorial
48
Other details

War service: Egypt, Western Front

Taken on strength, 6th Bn, Serapeum, 22 February 1916.

Proceeded from Alexandria to join the British Expeditionary Force, 25 March 1916; disembarked Marseilles, 30 March 1916. Appointed Lance Corporal, 1 May 1916; promoted Corporal, 19 January 1917; reverted to Pte at own request, 15 March 1917.

Admitted to 1st Australian Field Ambulance, 3 July 1917 (pyorrhoea); transferred to 1st Division Rest Station, 3 July 1917; discharged to unit to duty, 17 July 1917; rejoined unit, 18 July 1917.

On leave to United Kingdom, 1 August 1917; rejoined unit from leave, 14 August 1917. Admitted to 2nd Australian Field Ambulance, 1 September 1917 (venereal sores); transferred to 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station, 1 September 1917 (syphilis); to 16th General Hospital, Le Treport, 3 September 1917; discharged to Base details, 18 September 1917; rejoined unit, 30 September 1917.

Killed in action, Belgium, 4 October 1917.

Medals: 1914-15 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal

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